Schwarzenegger denies clemency for Williams

Crips co-founder and convicted murderer was scheduled to die shortly after midnight.

Crips co-founder and convicted murderer was scheduled to die shortly after midnight.

December 13, 2005|JOHN SIMERMAN Knight Ridder Newspapers

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday denied clemency for Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang co-founder and convicted murderer who was to be executed by lethal injection just after midnight barring an eleventh-hour reprieve. The governor issued his decision about 12:30 p.m., less than 12 hours before the 12:01 a.m. execution today and shortly after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Williams' motion for a stay of execution, and also turned away his fifth habeas corpus petition. In his decision, Schwarzenegger cited Williams' continued claim of innocence in the shotgun murders of four people in 1979, rejecting his plea for mercy based on redemption and his crusade against gang violence from death row over the last 13 years. "It is impossible to separate Williams' claim of innocence from his claim of redemption," Schwarzenegger wrote. "Cumulatively, the evidence demonstrating Williams is guilty of these murders is strong and compelling." Williams' plea to stay alive has drawn worldwide attention. In his series of anti-gang children's books and attempts to forge gang truces across the country, supporters saw a persuasive argument that Williams is more valuable to society alive than dead. "Stanley Williams is not afraid to die. Stanley Williams very much wants to live so he can continue talking to gang members, to teachers, to parents," said Jonathan Harris, one of Williams' clemency attorneys, last week. Williams' critics, including Los Angeles prosecutors, questioned the sincerity of his redemption, noting that he has never admitted to the crimes for which a jury sentenced him to death in 1981. Schwarzenegger's decision continues an unbroken string of clemency denials in California dating to 1967, when then-Gov. Ronald Reagan spared Calvin Thomas, who was brain damaged. It was Schwarzenegger's third denial of a clemency petition. Williams, 51, was convicted in the 1979 shotgun killings of convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, during a 7-Eleven robbery in Whittier; and of Yen-I Yang, 76, his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter, Ye-Chen Lin, 43, during a robbery at the motel they ran in Los Angeles. He has maintained his innocence throughout. As a known gang kingpin, Williams has said that he made a convenient target for false prosecution. But he has failed to sway state and federal courts in numerous appeals claiming that his trial was tinged by racism, that police work was shoddy, and that his prosecution relied largely on the testimony of known criminals, some of whom he claims were granted under-the-table deals. Over the weekend, Williams sought a delay, asking the courts to hold off while the state Legislature considers a moratorium on executions. A bill that the Legislature is expected to consider next month would provide time for a state commission to review the way the death penalty is applied in the state. Williams also filed a 132-page habeas corpus petition, his fifth habeas petition. The petition argued that several of his constitutional rights were denied at trial. In its denial Monday, a three-member panel of the 9th Circuit said Williams could not show his claims "could meet the statutory requirements of both due diligence and clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence."